Day: December 18, 2019

Britain’s competition regulator said there was a strong argument for tougher regulation of Google and Facebook to curb any negative consequences stemming from their domination of online advertising.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said Google accounted for more than 90% of all revenue earned for search advertising in the UK in 2018, with revenue of about 6 billion pounds, and Facebook accounted for almost half of all display advertising in the same year.

It said ‘big’ was not necessarily ‘bad’ and the platforms had brought innovative and valuable products and services to the market, but it was concerned their position may have negative consequences for the people and businesses who used their services every day.

It was also concerned that people did not feel in control of their data when they were on the platforms.

“Most of us visit social media sites and search on the internet every day, but how these firms work can be a mystery,” CMA Chief Executive Andrea Coscelli said.

“Digital advertising fuels big businesses like Google and Facebook and we have been building a picture of how this complex new market works.”

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NATO exercises near the border with Russia reflect the alliance’s preparations for a large-scale military conflict, Russia’s chief military officer said in remarks published Wednesday.

The chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, said at Tuesday’s meeting with foreign military attaches that NATO’s activities have heightened tensions and reduced security along the Russian border.

Asked if the Russian military sees a potential threat of war, Gerasimov said that Moscow doesn’t see “any preconditions for a large-scale war.”

He added, however, that Western pressure on Russia could trigger “crisis situations” that may spin out of control and provoke a military conflict.

Russia-West ties have sunk to their lowest levels since Cold War times following Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea. The Kremlin has repeatedly voiced concern over the deployment of NATO forces in the Baltics and the alliance’s maneuvers near Russia’s western border.

Gerasimov charged that the scenarios of the alliance’s drills in eastern Europe “point at NATO’s deliberate preparation for its troops’ involvement in a large-scale military conflict.”

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India’s Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the final appeal of one of the four men sentenced to death for the 2012 fatal gang rape of a woman on a moving bus in New Delhi, paving the way for the four to be hanged.

The gruesome case made international headlines and exposed the scope of sexual violence against women in India, prompting lawmakers to stiffen penalties in rape cases.

The victim, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student whom Indian media dubbed “Nirbhaya,” or “Fearless,” because Indian law prohibits rape victims from being identified, was heading home with a male friend from a movie theater when six men lured them onto a bus. With no one else in sight, they beat the man with a metal bar, raped the woman and used the bar to inflict massive internal injuries to her. The pair were dumped naked on the roadside, and the woman died two weeks later.

The assailants were tried relatively quickly in a country where sexual assault cases often languish for years. Four defendants were sentenced to death. Another hanged himself in prison before his trial began, though his family insists he was killed. The sixth assailant was a minor at the time of the attack and was sentenced to three years in a reform home.

One of those sentenced to death, Akshay Kumar Singh, filed his review petition earlier this month after the other three had theirs rejected.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected Singh’s appeal. India’s president can still decide to grant him mercy, but that is not expected to happen.

Activists say new sentencing requirements haven’t deterred rape, the fourth-most common crime against women in India, according to government statistics.

The last hanging in India was in 2013.

The Supreme Court’s ruling comes amid a revived debate over sexual violence in India after several headline-grabbing cases in recent weeks. A woman in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh was doused with gasoline and set on fire by five men, including two she had accused of gang rape and who were out on bail, on her way to attend a court hearing in her case. She died earlier this month at a hospital in New Delhi.

The burned body of a 27-year-old veterinarian was found in late November near the city of Hyderabad in southern India. Police later fatally shot four men being held on suspicion of raping and killing the woman after investigators took them to the crime scene, drawing praise from people frustrated by the pace of the 2012 case and condemnation from those who said it undermined the courts’ role.

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A global shipping industry organization is proposing a research and development program to help cut carbon dioxide emissions, funded by about $5 billion from shipping companies over a decade.

The International Chamber of Shipping said Wednesday that it is proposing creating a nongovernmental organization to be known as the International Maritime Research and Development Board.

It would be overseen by member countries of the U.N. maritime agency and financed by shipping companies through a mandatory contribution of $2 per metric ton of marine fuel.

Environmental activists say that while shipping contributes only about 2% of global greenhouse gases, the industry’s efforts are essential to combating climate change.

Last year, members of the U.N. agency, the International Maritime Organization, reached an agreement to cut the shipping industry’s emissions.

The strategy envisions cutting total annual emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050 compared with 2008. It foresees “pursuing efforts toward phasing them out entirely.”

The International Chamber of Shipping said that the proposed $5 billion “is critical to accelerate the R&D effort required to decarbonize the shipping sector” and to spur the development of commercially viable zero-carbon ships by the early 2030s. It added that “additional stakeholders’ participation is welcomed.”

The group said that governments will discuss the shipping industry’s proposal when the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee meets in London in March.

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Farmers and construction workers protested across the Netherlands early Wednesday, driving in slow-moving convoys during the morning rush hour to demonstrate against government policies aimed at cutting pollution.

Traffic authorities warned commuters that the morning rush hour would be busier than usual and police issued fines to some farmers for driving their tractors on the highway as the latest in a series of protests clogged roads around the country.

Police closed off a major highway near Amsterdam when farmers drove tractors onto the road.

Protester Jacco van den Berg told Dutch national broadcaster NOS that the action was aimed at showing that construction workers are prepared to take action to protect their livelihoods, which they say are threatened by measures to reduce pollution.

“Something has to happen,” he said. “We’re coming up to Christmas and there are companies that won’t make it to Christmas.”

Many construction projects were halted earlier this year when a Dutch court ruled that the government’s policy on granting building permits breached European pollution laws.

The protests came a day after Dutch senators approved legislation to cut emissions of the pollutant nitrogen oxide. Measures include making farmers change the feed they give to livestock and extending a voluntary scheme to buy up pig farms.

The new legislation, which has already been approved by the lower house of Parliament, also lowers the maximum speed limit on Dutch highways from 130 kph (80 mph) to 100 kph (62 mph).

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